Just put a little trust in me!

Well, this week was a lot of fun. Let's get right to the good stuff.

Monday night we had another lil Family Home Evening with investigators, and we watched the Joseph Smith Restoration thing. But I think I already told you guys that hahaha. It was a lot of fun and our investigators loved it! We also found out that we were going to have ANOTHER Multi-Mission Conference on Saturday, with Elder Snow, the Historian of the Church. It is cool, but means a lot more stress and less sleep.

Well, for these last few months, President himself put our Zone monthly baptism goals, instead of us putting them. He promised that if we hit these goals, then he would do a sick P-Day activity for the entire Zone. These are not easily goals to hit. President always stresses progress, just being a little better. So the goals were at least one baptism higher than the record of baptisms that a Zone has had in a month in the time of President. Depending on the amount of weeks there are in a month. For example, the record that Zona Jinotepe has had in a 4 week month was 23 baptisms, which we did in January. So, Pres put our goal for 25! We went into last week with 14, but everything was looking solid to get 25. It was gonna be close, but looked likely. That was the focus all week! Working on our 4 (Ana, Alfredo, Francis and Perla, as I talked about last week), and helping the rest of the Zone as well. I went out with Elder Collado on Tuesday to go visit some of these possible baptisms, and it was a lot of fun. I love working with that guy! I feel like I am in my training when I am with him, just speak a lil more Spanish and know a little more about the Gospel :)

Wednesday and Thursday were normal work days. Our 4 possibilities were looking good, even with all their problems, as I described last week. Perla, golden. Francis, super faithful. Ana, a little shaky but solid. Alfredo, a kid. We have worked so hard with them, and I have never prayed so hard for 4 people in my life. It was a good week preparing them!

Then we got to Friday. And everything went beserk. Remember, we had a huge Multi Mission on Saturday in Managua, so we had to prepare everything for that as well. At about 1:30 as I was working in our area, got a call from Elder Collado saying that they were gonna open up a couple areas in our Zone, and sent me out looking for houses :) so my friday was gone! I went to Nandaime and spent the whole day looking, but without any luck. Also, that day I got a call from Pres telling me that I was going to give the opening prayer at the meeting the next day. In front of 400 missionaries, two mission presidents and 2 general authorities, Elder Snow and Elder Alonso. At least that shows that President trusts me ahahaha but a little stressful!

Friday night Copeland and I didn't even sleep, cause we had to leave at about 2 in the morning to go pick up the rest of the missionaries in the Zone. And I was a little sick too. In our area, we were confident with everybody in the Zone, except our own baptisms. We were super super nervous about those 4, or at least 3 of them. We went to the meeting, and it was great! Learned about the importance of writing in my journal and putting it all on the table. My prayer was good too hahahah I think. But that was not the important part.

The baptisms. We got back to Jinotepe from Managua at about 2:30, and I was pretty sick, feeling really crappy. And..... like it always happens, 3 of our 4 possibilities were nowhere to be found. And their family was saying that these 3 (Ana, Francis and Alfredo) were not going to be receiving us anymore. Hahaha classic. As we found out, I got super frustrated, with the feelings of "here we go again", like has happened so many times in my mission. I begin to have the same doubts as always, because we had worked SO hard for these people. The feelings of "why?". I was feeling like all this work had been done for no reason, and I was really mad. But I tried to keep optimistic and we went a searchin.

Elder Copeland and I went to get the church ready, then took a taxi up to where these people live. Elder Copeland felt an impression to take a different route than we usually do though, and we did it. And miraculously, we saw Francis walking down that street with her son. We would not have found her had we not taken that route. Pura inspiracion. Nice work Cope. We got out of the taxi and she seemed super animated about getting baptized, and said that Ana and Alfredo were as well. Did I tell you that they were trying to do this baptism in secret so that they wouldn't get kicked out of their house? But she said all was good, just had to drop something off at her aunts. We went with her obviously, but waited outside and hid so that her family wouldn't see us. She didn't come out for about 20 minutes, so we got a little worried. We finally passed by and saw her inside, and she signaled to us to wait just a little. We waited and saw some old lady walk in. About 3 minutes later, she came out, didn't even look at us, and started walking toward herself. We caught up to her, and she was super sad because her aunt had found out and told her, "if you get baptized, then get out of the house." She did not want to do it. We tried to animate her, but nothing was really working walking to her house. Then we sat down and talked to her for about 45 minutes about faith and how she had seen miracles and how she could do this and how the promises of God always get done. No matter the circumstance, no matter the difficulty, if we are obedient, God will bless us. She wanted to do it, but was scared of getting kicked out of the house. Somehow, gracias a Dios(not bad here) and the Spirit, she decided to do it. But we had to secretly leave her house and get to the church so that her aunt wouldn't see her! We went walking down the street and then went down a little alley way to get out to the highway. As we left the highway, naturally we saw her aunt walking right towards us. Francis went sprinting back through the alley like she was going to her house, and Copeland and I sat there like nothing was happening. I thought, "well that was fun while it lasted", thinking that she would go back to her house and give up. Copeland and I followed to see if her aunt had seen her. When we got to the street, we couldn't see Francis. Two seconds later, one of our investigators on that street signaled at us... FRANCIS HAD HID IN THE HOUSE OF ANOTHER INVESTIGATOR FROM HER AUNT. She came out, we went to the church, and she got baptized. Perla got baptized as well. That night we never found Ana and Alfredo. We went in the morning to try, but couldn't get them. So we finished with two that weekend, 4 in the month.

Perla's baptism

Francis took an enormous step of faith that day. She has a 1 year old baby and isn't married, doesn't have a job, nothing. But she decided to put her faith in God. To be completely honest, I didn't know that was possible. I will never forget that moment and what she did. She will be forever blessed for that, I have no doubt. In the Zone, we finished with 24 baptisms. Our goal was 25. I was really disappointed, because our two baptisms that fell were the ones that would have helped the Zone hit their goal. But I learned a great lesson that day. It was the will of God. Although I was really sad, we did break a record, with 24 baptisms. And although they didn't all get baptized, I can honestly say that I really felt your prayers. The Spirit was very strong last week. And I am so happy for Francis and Perla. And I am so grateful for that miracle. It was the biggest miracle I have seen on my mission. Francis is a chosen daughter of God, just like all of them. It was a humbling experience, because I felt like an idiot for doubting and get frustrated.

Francis' baptism

Today, Copeland and I kept looking for a house in Nandaime! We got to play with some monkeys! That was super cool. The are incredible. Can basically do anything they want and are really smart! 

 

 

However, today was tough. We were looking for a house last night for 4 hours, and today from 8 to 3pm. We were really frustrated, because nobody wants to lose their P Day looking for a house! At 3, we decided to humble ourselves and say a little real prayer. We sat down on the sidewalk, I said a super humble prayer feeling like a complete idiot for not putting my trust in the Lord sooner, and we went searching. We found a house within two minutes. It's just the little things sometimes isn't it?? I feel like this last week the Lord was just telling us, "son, just put a little trust in me." I love the Lord, and I am grateful for His many miracles. And I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow every day.

Changes this week! Love you all so much. I felt your prayers this last week. I can promise that.

Elder Merrill